When I told my friends I was writing a book about senior sex, they thought I meant a book for high school seniors.

“Not exactly,” I blushed and went on to explain that my true romance stories were about men and women past sixty. They were surprised.

They giggled with embarrassment at first and then couldn’t suppress their curiosity about older people like their parents, grandparents, and me, yearning for love and romance in our senior years.

It seems to be the last taboo in film and TV. These days we think nothing of seeing mixed races or gay and lesbian couples making love, but when was the last time you saw two older people enjoying sex?

My stories are culled from my own experiences and those I hear in beauty salons and from friends over whispered lunches and in the women’s locker room of the YMCA.

A 78-year-old widow friend told me while we were doing chair exercises how she was asked out by a friend who had known her since high school.

She expressed all the excitement and anxieties a twenty-year-old might have about going to bed with him. Her glowing face and wide smile at the gym a week later told us she was into a hot and heavy romance, which gave all of the jealous sixty and seventy-year-olds something to look forward to.

Love is a young emotion, at whatever age it’s felt. Sexual satisfaction might involve a little more patience and creativity and help from the gynecologist and urologist. The sense of little time to waste when one is older means no time for inhibitions and fears to get in the way of pleasure.

No kids, no birth control pills, no work demands to keep you from enjoying a glass of wine, soft jazz from the iPod and a little late afternoon lovemaking. No need to wait until Saturday night. He can be younger. She can be overweight.

The most important ingredient isn’t Viagra and vaginal lubricant, but a robust sense of humor, no matter your age or gender, whether you’re involved in a sexual activity or reading these stories. I have included a few pre-sixty romances which were fraught with more inhibitions and expectations than the freedom felt in my later years feeling like a prom queen enjoying the attention of elderly courtly gentlemen or the playfulness of some younger “dudes” in their early seventies.